JAY LENO AND JIMMY FALLON DELIVER BIGGER AUDIENCES THAN THE ABC AND CBS TIME-PERIOD COMPETITION IN ALL KEY CATEGORIES: ADULTS, MEN AND WOMEN 18-34, 18-49 AND 25-54, PLUS TOTAL VIEWERS

FOR THE BROADCAST YEAR, JAY INCREASES HIS TOTAL-VIEWER LEAD OVER ‘Late Show’ TO 23 PERCENT FROM THE YEAR-AGO 15 PERCENT; JIMMY FALLON STRETCHES HIS MARGIN OVER ‘LATE Late Show’ TO 22 PERCENT , UP FROM LAST YEAR’S 7 PERCENT

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. – September 27, 2012 – NBC’s late-night stars have concluded the 2011-12 broadcast year with #1 finishes ahead of the ABC and CBS time-period competition, with "The Tonight Show with Jay Leno" generating bigger audiences than CBS’s “Late Show with David Letterman” and ABC’s combination of “Nightline” and “Jimmy Kimmel Live” head to head for their hour in every key ratings category: adults, men and women 18-34, 18-49 and 25-54, plus total viewers. And at 12:35 a.m. ET, “Late Night with Jimmy Fallon” also delivered bigger audiences in every key category versus CBS’s “Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson” and for its head-to-head half-hour versus ABC’s “Kimmel.”

For the broadcast year, “Tonight” and “Late Night” stretched their leads over “Late Show” and “Late Late Show” respectively in total viewers and key demos and dramatically increased those margins in the just-completed third quarter of 2012.

For the 2011-12 broadcast year, "Tonight" stretched its total-viewer margin over "Late Show" to 23 percent (3.641 million vs. 2.972 million), up from the year-ago season-to-date advantage of 15 percent, while increasing its 25-54 advantage to 11 percent (1.391 million vs. 1.250 million) from last year’s 10 percent and its 18-34 lead to 26 percent (345,000 vs. 274,000) from last year’s 25 percent.

Jimmy Fallon finished the 2011-12 year with a total-viewer lead over "Late Late Show" of 22 percent (1.741 million vs. 1.426 million), up from last year's advantage of 7 percent. Jimmy also increased his season lead over "Late Late Show" in adults 18-49 to 24 percent (700,000 vs. 564,000), up from last year’s 22 percent; in adults 18-34 to 56 percent (274,000 vs. 176,000), up from last year's 31 percent; and in adults 25-54 to 18 percent (837,000 vs. 712,000), up from 9 percent last season.

In the just-completed third quarter of 2012, Jay increased his lead over “Late Late Show” in total viewers to 47 percent (3.456 million vs. 2.353 million), up from the year-ago 32 percent, and led by 50 percent in 18-49 viewers (1.038 million vs. 690,000), up from last year’s 29 percent. At 12:35 a.m. ET, Jimmy Fallon stretched his third-quarter lead over “Late Late Show” to 44 percent in total viewers (1.658 million vs. 1.152 million), up from last year’s 24 percent, and increased his margin in viewers 18-49 to 54 percent (653,000 vs. 423,000), up from the year-ago 33 percent.

"Tonight" finishes the broadcast year having delivered a bigger 18-49 audience than "Late Show" for 34 of their last 38 head-to-head weeks (excludes weeks of Olympic preemptions) and their last 16 weeks in a row, while Jimmy Fallon has attracted a bigger 18-49 audience than "Late Late Show" for each of their last 41 head-to-head weeks.

“Tonight” concluded the broadcast year and the third quarter with #1 finishes for the week of September 17-21, delivering bigger audiences than “Late Show” in every key ratings category, despite a high-rated Tuesday edition of “Late Show” featuring a guest appearance by President Barack Obama. Note that Friday’s “Late Show” was an encore. At 12:35 a.m. ET, Jimmy Fallon also topped “Late Late Show” in all key ratings categories for the week.

WEEKLY AVERAGES

(According to in-home viewing figures from Nielsen Media Research for the week of September 17-21. Ratings reflect “live plus same day” data from Nielsen Media Research unless otherwise noted. Season-to-date figures are averages of “live plus seven day” data except for the two most recent weeks, which are “live plus same day.”)

I think there are a lot of signs that he will–that Ferguson stopped working for Worldwide Pants a few years ago and works directly for CBS, that he got a new studio, that Les Moonves loves Ferguson, that Letterman–who doesn’t really know Ferguson–has complained that he doesn’t get a say in naming his successor. This last comment, made to Paul Shafer, came soon after Ferguson’s contract renegotiation.

Time will tell. As Brad pointed out, traditional late night is for old folks. I’d be interested in any network’s version of Adult Swim.

Monikka

Stabelli,

Ferguson did say that but he’s just as smart as Letterman and I bet he knows how to play cat-and-mouse too.

Monikka

Oh, one last–and very important point: Bill Carter pointed out that Ferguson has a clause in his contract that he will succeed Letterman should Letterman die or become incapacitated. I think they called it the “Prince of Wales” clause.

Adam Stabelli

So do you all think Jay will step aside in 2014?

Monikka

Define “step aside.” He will stop doing the Tonight Show if his contract is not renewed but Leno will never go of his own volition. He’s just taken a massive pay cut to keep on telling jokes at 11:30. I’ll bet Regis Philbin–another never-say-die TV personality–wishes he’d taken the pay cut to stay on Live with Regis and Kelly.

Is it true Leno said he’d do the Tonight Show for free? It may well come to that.

Adam Stabelli

So Jay will never retire from The Tonight Show?

Adam Stabelli

He’ll just do the show until he drops dead on the stage?

Mario

Adam, if Jay had the choice he would do Tonight until his last breath! He has earned the right to be there by dominating the ratings for nearly 20 years!

Monikka, Leno would clean house at 11:30 if it’s Leno vs. Ferguson vs. Kimmel! I only see Jay’s ratings going higher in that case! Jay knows how to relate to the average American better than anyone!

Adam Stabelli

Uh huh. Mario, you’re raging fanboy love for Leno is mind blowing.

Gary Middleton

“He’ll just do the show until he drops dead on the stage?”

Theoretically. But he’s still 18 years younger than Regis and 3 years younger than Dave. The network will pull the plug on Jay long before dropping dead is likely to become an issue.

More interesting to me is where Jay is likely to accept guest invitations after that. Arsenio is a given. Real Time with Bill Maher too, I think. Fallon and Ferguson highly likely. He had long said he aches to return to Dave’s show, but since 2010 I find it unlikely that he’d venture into that hornet’s nest.

Douglas in TN

Why have my other comments been removed? Did I offend anybody?

Diana Santiago

I can see the first line of the interview if he’s a guest on a talk show… “Well, Jay, did you came here to steal this show too?”

Mario

Gary, Jay is also 15 years younger than when Larry King got pushed out.

Jay could easily finish out the decade and 7.5 more years! He’s got the energy and desire!

GARebelman

Everybody loved Jay as a guest (though I like guest Jay and host Jay) I wish he would go to some persons show. Perhaps he can go to Fallon’s. He wouldn’t do Letterman because we all know he’d milk the past out.

Gary Middleton

GAR, I think Dave would be a very gracious host with Jay in the room. But he has so conditioned his audience to regard Jay Leno as the agent of satan who is responsible for drought, famine, and H1N1 that there isn’t much upside to Jay doing the show. Comics can’t work with that. Any other discipline probably could, but comics can’t.

There will be plenty of shows for Jay to go on, and he’ll have a huge advantage this time because expectations are so low. People expect him to be completely unfunny. So if he’s even a little funny, they’ll be impressed. And if he’s very funny, which can still happen on a given day, it’s going to rock the room.

Aaron

I wonder what Dave interviewing Jay would be like today. Would it be like the good old days when Jay appeared on Late Night or what?

GARebelman

A lot of clips on youtube, even the ones who typically hate him can’t deny he is funny in them.

I agree Gary, going on Letterman would be bad. The audience would be God awful, about as bad as they are when Don Rickles shows up. You can clearly tell which side of the coast these people are on by audience reaction.

I think Jay would be great on Ferguson (as it was like last year the other way around when Ferg was plugging Winnie the Poo). He would be good on Fallon too as it has been vice versa. Obviously Kimmel is out of the question after the obvious. What makes Kimmel’s attitude so hilarious as his Ex man show friend Adam Carola is actually one of Jay’s car buddies and they are pretty good friends.

Aaron

And GAR, Carola hates Conan while Kimmel showed support for him during the Tonight Show debacle.

GARebelman

Yep I believe you are right about that one too! Another comedian hates Conan too his name just isn’t coming to me. He use to have a Fox sitcom a number of years ago. Something about how he was treated on his Late night show.

Gary Middleton

“I wonder what Dave interviewing Jay would be like today. Would it be like the good old days when Jay appeared on Late Night or what?”

I do think Dave would try to set him up like in the old days. And it would be fun to see if Jay can still deliver. But the jury pool is too tainted. And Dave’s chair is way too high! Watching 6 foot 1 Barack Obama look way up at Dave, it was like a parody.